Deportation appeal for ex-Salvadoran general

Published: February 6, 2014 4:25 AM

FALLS CHURCH, Va. (AP) -- The nation's highest immigration court is hearing an appeal from a former Salvadoran defense minister who is trying to halt his deportation after being found responsible for a series of human rights abuses.

Gen. Eugenio Vides Casanova has been living in Florida since immigrating in 1989. In 2012, an immigration judge ruled that he could be deported for his role in multiple acts of killings and torture committed by the Salvadoran military, including the deaths of three American nuns and a lay churchwoman in 1980.

The Board of Immigration Appeals in Falls Church is scheduled to hear his appeal Thursday morning.

Vides Casanova has argued that he should not be deported because the U.S. government knew of and supported the Salvadoran military's tactics in that country's civil war.